Another day at sea. Mom tries to make the case that the days at sea should be spent in restful contemplation and napping. I make the case that you can rest for free at home, and neither one of us is entirely convinced.
I start off the day at a demonstration called "The Art of Entertaining," which is a cooking series put on by Michael Jordan, Master Sommelier at the Napa Rose restaurant in the Grand Californian at DLR. He is accompanied by Gretchen...someone...who is something like the Executive Chef of the DCL, and who used to be something like the Executive Chef of EPCOT before.
They make duck comfit tacos and crunchy fish tacos which are a little amusing, as the duck requires you to get a duck breast and cook it slowly in (separately obtained) duck fat for eons, shred it, etc. and then roll it in a corn tortilla. Michael Jordan's fish tacos involve you going to the market and getting the Gorton's frozen fish sticks, baking them, and then cutting them in little pieces and putting them in a tortilla. So some difference in the amount of time/effort investment required.
After that, we attend a talk by the Art Auction folks, where they showed original art storyboards created by Salvador Dali for the animated short he did with Walt Disney called "Destino," and then showed the actual film from the 40's. It was typically difficult to follow as most Dali works are, but fascinating none the less in its depiction of a love story between a woman and man separated by time, monotony, and various insecurities, who ultimately find connection. I suspect you'd have to watch it a number of times before you really caught the majority of the details.
After a quick buffet lunch at Parrot Cay, we went to the matinee showing of the new DCL musical, "Twice Charmed," which basically follows a similar plotline to the made-for-DVD Cinderella III animated.
I liked it. It's definitely a little more ambitious than their other theatrical offerings in it's attempts to tell a whole new story with original music, etc. The sets and costumes are wonderful, as always, and the Stepmother and Franco, her Wicked Fairy Stepfather (who looks suspiciously like Nathan Lane) are well-delineated characters. As in the original text, however, the various protagonists come off a little weak, with the Major-Domo actually getting more characterization than anyone else. The Prince gets a little more to do this time around, and provides what I think is the funniest moment in the play: When the stepsisters are presented to him as his potential brides, he basically runs off stage, changes his clothes, then pretty much leaps off a balcony and flees away like a bat out of Hell. I think it's supposed to show his heroic resolve to find Cinderella, but it ends up just looking like abject terror to me.
Cinderella still strikes me as a heroine in dire need of a backbone. There's one point where she's wrestling with the stepsisters over an object which is supposed to mean the difference between marriage to the Prince and Happily Ever After, and a lifetime of domestic slavery to her stepfamily. I don't know about you, but if the stakes were that high for me, I expect blood on the floor before anyone runs away with that one.
Subsequently, we watched Prince Caspian in the Buena Vista Theater. While greatly changed from the original book as far as I can remember, it was a good action-filled flick, and the kids seemed as though they had become slightly better actors from the first film.
For dinner, we had Prince and Princess dinner, which we were told was a new menu for them.
For appetizers, I had Belle's scallops, with puff pastry. The kitchen continues its above-average run on scallops.
The featured entree was a chicken Wellington which my Mom said was good but too big a serving for her to finish. It had a mushroom stuffing.
I had a seafood stew with zucchini and olives. The seafood is cooked just right, however the sauce is a little one-dimensional, and the rice is frankly hard in bits, as if undercooked.
For dessert I had the chocolate slipper, which was not the same as the chocolate slipper they used to serve at Cinderella's Castle.
The slipper was really more of a decoration than an integral part of the dessert, and the presentation was fairly sloppy--it was like they had amateur night with the piping bag. The cake was very good though--similar to angel food.
Today's towel animal looks a little like a lobster, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's doing it's part to prevent cataracts.
Tomorrow: Panama Canal!
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